The lovely folks from MCE Public Relations invited us down to try out W5 Belfast’s Virtual Reality Experience, a new VR zone located within W5 itself.
Our new experience features a number of state-of-the-art platforms from leading VR specialists ‘Immotion’ and will take visitors on a series of incredible adventures. Bringing together world-class CGI, award-winning content creators and cutting-edge technology, ‘Immotion’ are devoted in delivering amazing virtual reality content.
Tucked in beside the new gift shop, the Virtual Reality Zone is an add-on experience available to W5 customers for £3 – £5 per player, per experience. Open to visitors aged 8+, the VR zone features both VR-4D Cinema Pods and VR Explorer Units, and we couldn’t wait to try them all out.
Going into W5, you might miss the VR zone, as it’s located just to the right of the gift shop, but it’s definitely worth hunting it out and giving VR a go, especially if you’ve never experienced virtual reality before.
We tried the VR-4D Cinema Pods first, and clambered into the egg-shaped seats to await our adventure. Each set of two pods is assigned an adventure of your choice, so you and a mate can experience the same thing at the same time.
Visitors can choose from 4 different adventures for the VR pods: Delta Zero – a space themed mission, Jinxed – a haunted house ride, Dragon Island – a kid-friendly excursion, and Legend of Lusca – a deep sea diving experience which a giant squid. With sound, motion and a VR headset, you feel fully immersed in each and every one of these stories, quickly forgetting that you’re sitting in the middle of Belfast. My personal favourite was Jinxed which sees you rattling your way through a haunted house rollercoaster in a spooky world with plenty of jump scares! Delta Zero was a close second, and it felt like being right inside a Star Wars movie as we soared through space.
The best part about the VR is that you can look absolutely anywhere and see something new, so don’t forget to look up, down, left and right, and don’t just focus straight ahead.
Next up, we tried the VR Explorer Pods out for size; these are stand-up VR areas where you choose your game, pop on a VR headset, grab two hand controllers and start playing.
I tried out Meet the Titanosaur where I got to actually (well it definitely felt like it anyway) feed one of the largest creatures to ever walk the earth. The perfect gateway game for those who haven’t tried VR before, a calming David Attenborough-esque voice guides you through the process of lifting up branches and offering them to the giant dinosaur who takes them from your hand and eats them. Such a surreal experience, this 360 degree world features everything from sounds to vibrations so that you genuinely feel like you’re millions of years in the past. Chris tried out the more fast-paced Mad Factory where he found himself in a cookie factory fulfilling orders on the clock.
Each VR experience is around 5 minutes long, and will definitely leave you wanting more. A truly immersive and unique experience, it’s great to see something like this in Belfast, and we can’t wait to try more!
You must be logged in to post a comment.